For Sophomores

Now that you are a veteran of one year of high school, it is a good time to take a look at all of your classes and extracurricular activities. Remember, colleges are looking not only at how well you do, but also at how involved you are becoming with activities beyond the classroom. Here are some ways that you can continue not only to enjoy high school, but also make the most of your time as you anticipate heading off to college in the future:

1. Make sure you meet with your Personal Counselor to discuss your courses, your activities, and your ‘wish list’ of colleges you may be thinking about for future applications.
2. Review your schedule with your Personal Counselor to make sure you are enrolling in courses that are challenging you. Note that you should not be signing up for courses simply because they are designated as Honors or Advanced Placement, but rather, that you should be enrolling in courses that you are interested in – and if you determine that the advanced or enriched or honors track is the appropriate one for you, then, by all means, sign up for those courses.
3. Continue to get involved at Bellarmine with extracurricular activities that help you grow beyond your academic self. Activities beyond the classroom, whether in community service, speech and debate, theater, athletics, intramurals, student government, yearbook, the literary magazine, and the many clubs that Bellarmine offers to students, will help round out your life as a high school student.
4. Bellarmine students take the PLAN test in the fall of their sophomore year. This test is a precursor of the ACT (the other big testing company in the United States, often seen as a healthy alternative to the SAT). Your Personal Counselor will help you understand how to interpret your scores when your PLAN is returned to you in January of your sophomore year, and you will also receive some information about possible majors and careers via a student questionnaire that you fill out as part of your registration for the test.
5. Sign up for SAT Subject tests in areas that relate to your current course choices. For example, if you are taking Biology or Biology Honors this year, or World History or World History AP, go ahead and take the SAT Subject test in this area while the content of the course is fresh in your mind. The University of California system does require two subject tests for admissions evaluation, as do many of the more selective colleges – so you might want to check the admissions criteria of colleges you are thinking about as you decide on your testing.
6. Look for summer opportunities that will continue to enrich your academic, personal, and extracurricular life. There is a file cabinet in the College Guidance office with many brochures ranging from art programs, to film studies, to journalism camps to computer and graphic design programs. You might also ask your teachers and your personal counselors if they know of any summer opportunities in fields that relate to your specific interests. Or, if taking a course at Bellarmine’s summer school or at a local community college intrigues you, follow up by checking schedules for either of these possibilities – again pursuing this because of your interest, and not because you are ‘resume building.’
7. And, if you and your family decide to go on a vacation, check out the area near your vacation spot to see if you might visit any colleges. It is a good idea to start to take campus tours of colleges even if you may not eventually apply to those colleges. Just introducing a college to you can spark some “must haves” and “don’t wants” for your college search.
8. Finally, there is a Sophomore Parents Night in the second semester of your sophomore year to which your parents are invited. Here, the college counselors will talk about the philosophy of our college counseling program, and will introduce your parents to the college search and to a variety of resources available to you at this point in your high school life

Click here to learn how to use Bellarmine's College Guidance program, Naviance.

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